- Review -

15.02.2011 FunkyKit.com

I have to say, I was extremely impressed with the cooling performance of the Noctua NH-C14 CPU cooler. I wasn't expecting itat all ... I thought that the NH-C14 was just another standard CPU cooler that Noctua added to their catalogue, just to make up the numbers. But I was wrong. With idle temperatures of around 23 degrees Celsius, it's identical to their flagship NH-D14. This is also true during our load tests, in which we managed to get a very good temperature reading of 41 degrees Celsius. Overlocked temperatures were also very good. With an overclocked Core i5 - 650 @ 4.0Ghz, our idle temperatures were hovering around 26 degrees Celsius, while our load temperatures reading a maximum od 56 degrees Celsius. All-in-all, I'm very happy with its overclocked cooling performance. And you know what? ... there's also an added bonus that it's ultra quiet (unlike the Thermaltake Frio OCK with the fan turned on max) What I really like about the NH-C14 so far, is the ability to chop and change the configuration of the fans. You can have both fans installed for maximum cooling performance, or just mount one ... either on the top for high clearance of 65mm (for certain memory with large heatspeaders) or underneath for low-profile mode, which could make it ideal for HTPC systems.

"The Noctua NH-C14 is a great addition to their expanding catalogue of CPU coolers. It offers excellent cooling performance, low noise level, and comes with great features such as the C-shape design and the flexible fan setup." (Winston Chim, FunkyKit.com)